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When a chemist, a professional fragrance-maker, begins a book on scent by declaring that "perfumes are not about" memory and sex, one's first thought is that he'd better have a darned good replacement. Luca Turin's The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell (Faber, £12.99) is less adventurous and more science-y than one might have hoped. However, owing to an early fondness for the one-time chemist Primo Levi, I decided to pursue this little book to its conclusion, and was not entirely disappointed.
The "secret" of the title is the method by which scientists may predict the smell of a synthetic single molecule based upon its atomic structure. Turin thinks he's cracked the code - not a modest claim - and leads readers to an understanding of his theory via the findings of earlier physicists and biophysicists.
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lalya lloyd on a book which deconstructs the mysteries of perfume
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The idea is that human "smell receptors" (of which we have 347) respond to the fixed vibrations of "smell molecules", and it is these frequencies which tell us whether we're smelling roses or poo.
Due to the cost and the unreliability of "natural" plant extracts, most perfumes are now composed of synthetic products. As a perfume snob - I have been wearing Guerlain's Champs Elysees, and only that, since I was 16 - I found it enlightening to discover what really goes into the world's fine fragrances (fancy saying, "Mmm, that must be trans-2-hexenal, if I'm not much mistaken..."). The first part of the book is full of these interesting facts, although I found the unlabelled "scientific" illustrations more off-putting than illuminating. If Turin's theory turns out to be fool-proof, I look forward to seeing what he produces. 
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POSTED MAY 23, 2006
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